Busi­ness Fin­land’s chal­lenge com­pe­ti­tion for com­pa­nies and ecosys­tems

WHAT IS A CHAL­LENGE COM­PE­TI­TION?

Busi­ness Fin­land has launched new chal­lenge com­pe­ti­tions in which com­pa­nies with inter­na­tion­al oper­a­tions agreed to resolve sig­nif­i­cant future chal­lenges and increase their research, devel­op­ment, and inno­va­tion invest­ments in Fin­land. If suc­cess­ful, these projects will lead to addi­tion­al invest­ments of sev­er­al bil­lion euros in Fin­land. The pro­posed projects were to solve sig­nif­i­cant future chal­lenges and have a remark­able impact on the RDI (Research, Devel­op­ment, and Inno­va­tion) tar­get of 4% and the employ­ment tar­get of 75% laid down in the Gov­ern­ment Pro­gramme.

The win­ning com­pa­nies have com­mit­ted to increas­ing their RDI invest­ments in Fin­land cumu­la­tive­ly by almost 1.5 bil­lion euro in total. In addi­tion, the lead­ing com­pa­nies were to boost RDI coop­er­a­tion with research organ­i­sa­tions and SMEs.

Busi­ness Fin­land’s fund­ing has been a max­i­mum of 20 mil­lion euro for the lead­ing com­pa­ny and 50 mil­lion euro for the ecosys­tem assem­bled by the lead­ing com­pa­ny.

Read more about the call

OBJEC­TIVES OF THE CALL

The goals of the com­pe­ti­tion are con­sid­er­able increas­es in research, devel­op­ment and inno­va­tion invest­ments by the com­pa­nies in Fin­land, as well as the cre­ation of new jobs and ecosys­tems for new busi­ness oper­a­tions worth bil­lions of euros. The projects sug­gest­ed by the com­pa­nies par­tic­i­pat­ing in the com­pe­ti­tion must pro­vide solu­tions to major future chal­lenges, either to mis­sions or sig­nif­i­cant tech­no­log­i­cal chal­lenges. They must have a sig­nif­i­cant impact on Finland’s com­pe­tence, com­pet­i­tive­ness and invest­ment in RDI.

COM­PE­TI­TION CAT­E­GORIES

Lead­ing com­pa­nies: com­pa­nies that oper­ate glob­al­ly and have the capac­i­ty to make major addi­tion­al invest­ments in RDI in Fin­land. The max­i­mum amount of fund­ing is EUR 20 mil­lion for a lead­ing com­pa­ny and EUR 50 mil­lion for ecosys­tem part­ners.

Chal­lenger com­pa­nies: for com­pa­nies that strive to grow into a glob­al play­er, solve a small­er or more focused chal­lenge, devel­op com­plete­ly new busi­ness open­ings, or strength­en the role of a com­pa­ny oper­at­ing in Fin­land in a glob­al­ly oper­at­ing group. The addi­tion­al RDI invest­ment promis­es are not quite as big as with lead­ing com­pa­nies. Fund­ing for the chal­lenger com­pa­ny up to 10 M€ and for its ecosys­tem 20 M€.

Co-Inno­va­tion and Research, devel­op­ment and pilot fund­ing can be applied for con­tin­u­ous­ly.

Two call rounds for Co-Research fund­ing will be orga­nized in 2024, end­ing on April 29 (note: one day ear­li­er than pre­vi­ous­ly announced) and August 30.

The dead­line for the first phase is Thurs­day 5.9.2024 at 23.59.

9.4.2024 info webi­nar pre­sen­ta­tion (pdf) 

Con­tact per­son

Mari­ta Vir­ta­nen

Chief Fund­ing Advi­sor

marita.virtanen@businessfinland.fi

+358 50 5577 662

Source: Busi­ness Fin­land